CONTŬBERNĀLES (σύσκηνοι), signified originally men who served in the same army and lived in the same tent. The word is derived from taberna (afterwards tabernaculum), which was the original name for a military tent, as it was made of boards (tabulae). Each tent was occupied by ten soldiers (contubernales), with a subordinate officer at their head, who was called decanus, and in later times caput contubernii. Young Romans of illustrious families used to accompany a distinguished general on his expeditions, or to his province, for the purpose of gaining under his superintendence a practical training in the art of war, or in the administration of public affairs, and were, like soldiers living in the same tent, called his contubernales. In a still wider sense, the name contubernales was applied to persons connected by ties of intimate friendship, and living under the same roof; and hence, when a freeman and a slave, or two slaves, who were not allowed to contract a legal marriage, lived together as husband and wife, they were called contubernales; and their connection, as well as their place of residence, contubernium.
CONTŬBERNĬUM. [[Contubernales].]
CONVĔNĪRE IN MĂNUM. [[Matrimonium].]
CONVENTUS, was the name applied to the whole body of Roman citizens who were either permanently or for a time settled in a province. In order to facilitate the administration of justice, a province was divided into a number of districts or circuits, each of which was called conventus, forum, or jurisdictio. Roman citizens living in a province were entirely under the jurisdiction of the proconsul; and at certain times of the year, fixed by the proconsul, they assembled in the chief town of the district, and this meeting bore the name of conventus (σύνοδος). Hence the expressions—conventus agere, peragere, convocare, dimittere. At this conventus litigant parties applied to the proconsul, who selected a number of judges from the conventus to try their causes. The proconsul himself presided at the trials, and pronounced the sentence according to the views of the judges, who were his assessors (consilium or consiliarii). These conventus appear to have been generally held after the proconsul had settled the military affairs of the province; at least, when Caesar was proconsul of Gaul, he made it a regular practice to hold the conventus after his armies had retired to their winter quarters.
CONVĪVĬUM. [[Symposium].]
CŎPHĬNUS (κόφινος, Engl. coffin), a large kind of wicker basket, made of willow branches. It would seem that it was used by the Greeks as a basket or cage for birds. The Romans used it for agricultural purposes, and it sometimes formed a kind of portable hot-bed. Juvenal, when speaking of the Jews, uses the expression cophinus et foenum (a truss of hay), figuratively to designate their poverty.
CORBIS, dim. CORBŬLA, CORBĬCŬLA, a basket of very peculiar form and common use among the Romans, both for agricultural and other purposes. It was made of osiers twisted together, and was of a conical or pyramidal shape. A basket answering precisely to this description, both in form and material, is still to be seen in every-day use among the Campanian peasantry, which is called in the language of the country “la corbella.”
CORBĪTAE, merchantmen of the larger class, so called because they hung out a corbis at the mast-head for a sign. They were also termed onerariae; and hence Plautus, in order to designate the voracious appetites of some women, says, “Corbitam cibi comesse possunt.”
Cornu. (Bartholini de Tibiis.)